Views from Western Australia

On April 27, 2007 native title was recognised over Noonkanbah cattle station, west of Fitzroy Crossing, in the Kimberley, north Western Australia, scene of a famous land rights protest 27 earlier.

Background
‘It looks like there’s two laws, white man law and Aboriginal law … Now this is the way we are thinking - to pull the white man from the ears to listen to what the Aboriginal Law will say.’ (Dicky Skinner, Noonkanbah 1978)

In Western Australia in 1980, AMAX, a mineral exploration company, encouraged by Sir Charles Court’s Liberal state government, attempted to drill for oil on an important religious site at Noonkanbah cattle station in the Kimberley. Noonkanbah had recently been granted as leasehold to the Yungngora Community by the Commonwealth government and the community strongly resisted attempts to drill in areas sacred to them.

Noonkanbah station made front-page news in 1980 when Aboriginal people and non Aboriginal people from all over Australia rallied to prevent a petroleum company drilling in the area of a sacred site.

Despite their efforts, the drilling was only delayed. It went ahead with the state government bringing in non-union labour, and a convoy of drilling equipment, ‘protected’ by a large police presence, to break through the community barricade.

Essentially Noonkanbah was a conflict between ways of seeing and using land - Aboriginal law and religion versus the European notion of property law and exploitation of resources.

The Federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Fred Chaney was openly critical of the Western Australian government for insisting that minerals exploration prevail over Indigenous land owners’ wishes. However, the Noonkanbah dispute demonstrated to advocates of land rights that the Commonwealth was not willing to challenge ‘States rights’ over land use.

The Noonkanbah protest, that pre-dated the Mabo and Wik decisions, symbolised the struggle for recognition of land rights.

Latest
In August 2007 Dickey Cox signed an agreement which will allow ARC Energy to drill for oil and gas at Noonkanbah. But unlike the events of 1980, the agreement is about a partnership between the miners and the native title holders, one that promises to bring jobs and training for young people and much needed income for the community. And unlike 1980, this time important Aboriginal places will be respected.

For further information:
Noonkanbah: Whose Land, Whose Law
by: Stephen Hawke
Pub’d: 1989
ISBN: 0949206555

Prisoners and prison officers deserve the same level of care and protection from the harmful effects of smoking as everyone else in the community.

The prevalence of tobacco use in Australian prisons remains extremely high at 80%, in contrast with the continuing decline of smoking in the wider community. Smoking in custodial settings is a major priority because high prisoner smoking rates have significant health and economic implications.

‘Prison culture’, which makes tobacco smoking accepted as the norm is problematic; and the lack of any political commitment towards addressing tobacco use in prisons is worrying.

In 2005 California banned the possession, sale, and use of all tobacco products for inmates, employees, and visitors to the State’s 32 prisons. With over 160,000 people incarcerated California has the largest prisoner population in the US. It was estimated that about 80,000 of those prisoners were smokers and a study reported that tobacco use cost California an average of $3,500 per smoking prisoner every year in health costs. Hence, the bans were expected to reduce the state’s inmate health care expenses by about $280 million annually.

Prisons without tobacco are becoming the norm across the US and the experience has generally been very positive. In 2004 smoking was outlawed in 105 federal penitentiaries that accommodate roughly 180,000 inmates. At least ten States have bans where the use and possession of tobacco products is outlawed on prison property.

But what is happening in Australia?

Western Australia has the lowest smoking rates in the country and the Australian Council on Smoking and Health (ACOSH) has urged the introduction of smokefree prisons in WA with the last two Ministers for Corrective Services.

Late last year ACOSH was contacted by prison officers from Greenough Regional Prison who were extremely concerned about the health risks of work in a smoke-filled environment.

The prison officers also sent a petition to their local member and requested him to table it in the State parliament. It had been signed by about half the staff and was a heartfelt plea for a smokefree environment.

They discussed it with the local member, who was very supportive and took action on their behalf with the petition. The Minister subsequently made an initial announcement to the media.

ACOSH has received positive support and positive feedback about Greenough from prisons around the State and other parts of Australia; smoking is topical in prisons everywhere.

ACOSH have also received letters from prisoners in WA prisons who are really concerned about the effects of other people’s smoke on their health.

The recent announcement by the Minister of trialing a partial ban on smoking in Greenough Regional Prison is inadequate and it is a desperately slow response to requests from prison staff.

The case for a ban on smoking in prisons is clear and overwhelming. It will protect the health of prisoners and prison staff. Failing to ban smoking in cells overnight, for instance, will make the trial pathetically weak. This was one of the major concerns for prison officers because they say the air is thick with smoke when they open the cells every morning.

The Minister’s announcement was well intentioned, but she appears to have been poorly advised.

This 12 month trial of a partial smoking ban in one regional prison is the weakest possible response to calls for a complete ban on smoking in all Western Australian prisons. Partial bans get partial results and cannot be expected to succeed; prisoners will remain exposed to all the cues that encourage smoking.

Prisoners and prison staff deserve to have their health protected just as much as other members of the community. A complete ban on smoking in prisons should be carefully planned and implemented. It should be introduced properly, rather than this half baked approach which is a recipe for failure.

Interestingly, WA’s Frankland Centre (which is a specialist correctional facility for those with mental illnes) like the rest of the health system has been smokefree since last June and it had a very successful and smooth implementation.

Staff at Greenough prison requested a complete ban; and the case for the ban on smoking is overwhelming on health and occupational safety grounds.

The Minister clearly supports a ban in principle, but she appears to have been convinced by Bureaucrats to opt for the least effective approach.

We encourage the Minister to act firmly in the interests of prisoner and staff health.

INTRODUCTION
“Australia has one of the best organised, best financed, most politically savvy and well-connected anti-smoking movements in the world. They are aggressive and have been able to use the levers of power very effectively to propose and pass draconian legislation. . . . The implications of Australian anti-smoking activity are significant outside Australia because Australia is a seedbed for anti-smoking programs around the world.”  This is taken from a Philip Morris (Australia): Corporate Affairs Planning Document, 1992 [Online]. Available: www.pmdocs.com. Bates no. 2023240608_0627.

Today I will briefly outline how advocacy has been an import tool in the decline in smoking prevalence in Australia, and will note key advocacy targets for decreasing smoking prevalence in the future.

TOBACCO SMOKING: THE DECLINE IN PREVALENCE
In Australia, there has been a largely uninterrupted decline in smoking prevalence since the early 1960s, when an estimated 58 per cent of men and 28 per cent of women smoked.

In  2004 WA smoking prevalence was 15.5 % of people over 14 years of age who smoked on a daily basis.  In 2007  the national figure is down to 16.6%  of people over 14 years of age who smoked on a daily basis.

Recently published figures indicate that smoking rates of Western Australian 12 to 15-year-olds has dropped from 19.4 per cent in 1984 and 15.2 per cent in 1999 to five per cent in 2005.  The percentage of 16 to 17-year-olds who smoke has fallen from 21.4 per cent in 1999 to 9.8 per cent.

HOW HAS THIS BEEN ACHIEVED?
Efforts to explain the rapidly declining tobacco usage usually point to mileposts since 1970, which marked the introduction of various tobacco control policies, laws, and prominent antismoking campaigns. The advocacy that led to the introduction of a law for tobacco control is rarely considered. Yet when you ask, “How did WA manage to ban smoking in pubs and clubs?” any answer must place advocacy at center stage.

Australia has one of the world’s most successful records on tobacco control. The role of public health advocacy in securing public and political support for tobacco control legislation and policy and program support is widely acknowledged.

As a result Australia has:

• among the world’s most expensive cigarettes;

• among the world’s most prominent health warnings on cigarette packets; plans to implement these saw prolonged periods of lobbying by the industry;

• smokeless tobacco - In 1986, the South Australian government became the first government in the world to ban smokeless tobacco, his ban later went national;

• a total ban on all advertising and promotion of cigarettes;

• mass reach media campaigns; In the late 1970s, Australia was one of the first nations to run mass-reach antismoking campaigns;

• Quitline services that provide advice and support to smokers trying to quit smoking;

• relatively high tobacco taxes by international standards; there has been a great deal of industry lobbying to restrain further rises;

• extensive media coverage of tobacco control;

• legislation that prohibits tobacco smoking in enclosed workplaces, (including restaurants, cafes, pubs, clubs and nightclubs) and public transport;

• reduced displays at point of sale and implementation of retailer and wholesaler licenses;

• local government moving on smokefree children’s playgrounds, al fresco and beaches; and

• a smokefree public health system, including all psychiatric facilities.

There have also been recent announcements regarding:

• banning additives and flavourings that make smoking more palatable to children;

• introducing fire-safe cigarettes by 2009, and

• a commitment to fund Indigenous tobacco control.

These initiatives don’t just fall out of the sky; they are the result of an ongoing advocacy campaign.

SOME OF THE HOW
The objectives of advocacy involve changing health policy and laws rather than efforts focused on persuading individuals to quit smoking.

Invariably, the objectives are contested. This means that there are readily identifiable and often determined opponents of the changes being proposed (example Australian Hotels Association fought against the introduction of smokefree pubs and delayed its implementation for ten years).

Since many of advocacy’s goals require political reform, advocacy is unavoidably a political activity.

The ability to frame a public health issue successfully, to attract public and political support, is a core skill of advocacy. Mass media is critical and requires extensive coverage of the issue in the news media. Wide and positive cover by the media is important in developing supportive public and political environments.

Advocacy campaigns, while often highly planned and strategically governed, are also responsive and opportunistic. For example, as recently as April 2008: Major media attention was focused on the announcement to increase tax on ‘alco pops’; this became a catalyst for a call for tax increases on tobacco.

WHERE TO FROM HERE?
In order to achieve a further reduction in prevalence and consumption of tobacco smoking, Australia needs to continue the comprehensive tobacco control programs already in place, as well as:

• providing more funding for sustainable, high profile public information campaigns for tobacco control,

• end donations to political parties by tobacco companies,

• removing any exemptions in existing legislation to ensure that all enclosed workplaces (including Burswood & prisons) are smoke free,

• developing and implementing a regulatory framework to control all aspects of tobacco production, packaging, marketing, and taxation,

• all tobacco products under the counter at point of sale

• smokefree al fresco dining,
• all government agencies to go smokefree (including prisons, people with disabilities and universities),

• smokefree cars,

• funding for public education,

• taxation increase,

• generic packaging,

• smokefree movies, and

• local government (as a broad area).

In closing, advocacy may seem to be a loose and inexact science, developing as an advocate demands a range of communicative, philosophical and technical skills.

As ‘tobacco control’ could now be considered to be ‘on a roll’, a range of strategies to advance its objectives are being considered and that is terrific. However, this should not blind leadership in the public health community to the importance of ongoing, well resourced advocacy that is proven to work.

Stephen Hall
Executive Director of the Australian Council on Smoking & Health

 

In early 2008 a historic speech was made by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd in the Australian Parliament. That speech made headlines around the world. It was widely covered by the media throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East and continental Europe, countries which normally show little interest in Australian happenings.

It was a speech that was 10 years in the making. In 1995 the Australian Government asked the Human Rights Commission to hold a national inquiry into the policies which authorized the removal of tens of thousands of Aboriginal children from their families in an attempt to assimilate them into white society. This inquiry was chaired by a former High Court judge, Sir Ronald Wilson, and the report it produced was titled ‘Bringing Them Home’.

It was an agonising report, detailing hundreds of tragic stories resulting from these policies. However, by 1997, when it was published, the Government had changed, and the new Prime Minister, John Howard, was utterly hostile to it. He had won the election saying, among other things, that ‘the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of Aboriginal interests, and we are going to swing it back.’ This report was the last thing he wanted.

That Government was defeated in national elections in November 2007. When the new Parliament sat for the first time in February, its first action was to apologise to those who were removed – who were know now as the Stolen Generations. Before making that speech, the new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, went to the home of a member of the Stolen Generations in her eighties, Lorna Fejo, and spent two hours listening to her story.

In the parliament he said:

‘We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations – this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.’

This is what many people had waited for years, for decades to hear. All around the parliament people in tears, as they were all over the country, where thousands gathered at public screenings of the speech. It was a huge event for those who had suffered as a result of these policies.

Kevin Rudd talks about facing the truth. Every nation has aspects of its history which it distorts. For Australia the greatest distortion is in the encounter between the Aboriginal people and the white settlers. As the former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, said, ‘The history we were taught in school was simply not true.’

If you defend a lie, you shut your eyes to those whose experience you deny. You shut your heart to their feelings. So the policies you develop are not based on reality, far less on compassion, and Aboriginal Australians have often had to bear the consequences of misguided and callous policy.

So what do you do about it? An Australian politician, Kim Beazley Sr, said of his 32 years in the Federal Parliament, ‘I have learned that the key to social advance is not power but conscience. All social advance depends on making the conscience more sensitive.’ The struggle to right the wrongs done to the Stolen Generations was a contest between power and conscience. If it had been a political contest, it would have made little impact because Aboriginal people are spread thinly across the country, and have little ability to influence voting patterns. But it became an issue of conscience, and it remained so. That was its strength.

Many Australians reacted to the ‘Bringing Them Home’ report in an entirely different way to the Government. For example, Aboriginal leader, Professor Mick Dodson, said soon after the report’s launch: ‘We have seen a most extraordinary turn of events in this country. Day after day the letter pages in the papers and the airwaves are filled with the reactions of ordinary Australians who were horrified at the truth that they never knew. Never before has Australia really cared about our children, children taken from the arms of their mothers, taken from their culture.’

Why did this happen? I think one key catalyst was the work of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. This was launched in 1990, under the leadership of Patrick Dodson, and its strategy was to bring Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians together. It developed programs for voluntary groups, and during the next five years, hundreds of groups formed, in universities, churches, schools, civic organisations. It also arranged official encounters, bringing together the Aboriginal leaders in many towns and cities with the Mayor and councilors, the police, magistrates, teachers and business leaders. Through its work, tens of thousands of non-Indigenous Australians heard the experience of Aboriginal people, often for the first time. Many found this to be an eye-opening experience.

Sir Ronald Wilson’s eye-opening experience was the Stolen Generations inquiry. He said of it:

‘It was like no other I have undertaken.  Other inquiries were intellectual exercises, a matter of collating information and making recommendations. But for these people to reveal what had happened to them took immense courage and every emotional stimulus they could muster.

At each session, the tape would be turned on and we would wait… I would look into the face of the person who was to speak to us. I would see the muscles straining to hold back the tears. But tears would stream down, still no words being spoken. And then, hesitantly, words would come.

We sat there as long as it took. We heard the story, told with that person’s whole being, reliving experiences which had been buried deep, sometimes for decades. They weren’t speaking with their minds; they were speaking with their hearts. And my heart had to open if I was to understand them.’

This affected him deeply.  “I came to this inquiry with fifty years behind me as a hardboiled lawyer, mixing it with all sorts of antagonists,” he said “and yet this inquiry changed me. And if it can change me, it can change our nation.”

This enquiry was his last assignment before retiring from public office. So he was free to speak out, and he did so. He went to State Governments, churches, the police, asking for apologies from all who had been involved in implementing the removal policies – and led the way himself.  “I was a leader of the Presbyterian Church in Western Australia at the time we ran Sister Kate’s Home, where removed children grew up,” he said. “I was proud of the home, with its system of cottage families. Imagine my pain when I discovered, during this inquiry, that children were sexually abused in those cottages.” He and the Presbyterian Church apologised wholeheartedly.

His actions struck a chord. In the following months, most of Australia’s State parliaments and churches held ceremonies to hear from representatives of the Stolen Generations, and to apologise for their role in this tragedy. They were very meaningful events.

Then a bigger event came along. One recommendation of the report was that a Sorry Day be held to commemorate the tragedy, and help the healing process. The Prime Minister ignored this. But Sir Ronald did not give up. He consulted Stolen Generations leaders, and they jointly invited thirty people, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, to meet and consider whether a Sorry Day could be held without Government involvement.

It took place in January 1998, and by the end of the day’s discussion, it was decided to try. 26 May was chosen as Sorry Day, since the report had been tabled in the Federal Parliament on May 26, 1997. And two co-Chairs were selected – one Aboriginal and one non-Aboriginal.

The organisers described Sorry Day as ‘a day when all Australians can express their sorrow for the whole tragic episode, and celebrate the beginning of a new understanding…. Indigenous people will participate in a Day dedicated to the memory of loved ones who never came home, or who are still finding their way home…. Sorry Day can help restore the dignity stripped from those affected by removal; and it offers those who carried out the policy - and their successors - a chance to move beyond denial and guilt.’

A former Governor-General of Australia, Sir Zelman Cowen, accepted an invitation to be patron. Then in March the idea was launched to the nation.

The response far exceeded expectations. The Secretary of the Sorry Day Committee was soon getting many phone calls a day from people organising events. Artists painted, musicians composed, writers and playwrights wrote. A well-known actor created Sorry Books – manuscript books in which people could express their apology. More and more books were produced as demand grew from public libraries, town councils, schools, universities. Soon several thousand books were in circulation, and nearly a million people wrote messages, many of them telling of personal experiences which prompted them to contribute.

When the day arrived, it was commemorated by thousands of events. There were theatrical presentations, cultural displays, town barbecues. Universities, government departments, councils, churches held gatherings to hear from Stolen Generations people, and to ceremonially hand the Sorry Books to them. The churches of central Melbourne rang their bells. The Lord Mayor gave the keys of the city to representatives of the Stolen Generations. Over half of the 30-minute national TV news that evening was devoted to Sorry Day events, and to the heartfelt response of Aboriginal leaders.

The Federal Government was taken aback by the strength of the Day. They had no idea how to respond to a campaign which included many people active on their side of politics. So they stayed practically silent. This provoked plenty of cartoons in the press.

But the Stolen Generations were deeply moved. For the first time, they felt that the Australian community understood what they had gone through. From across the country many of them met together, and decided to launch a Journey of Healing, inviting all Australians to play a part in healing the wounds. It is a measure of how moved they were by Sorry Day that the people whose childhoods had been ripped up by callous white attitudes welcomed the white community to work with them for healing.

Again, there was a huge response. A former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, and a widely-respected Aboriginal woman, Lowitja O’Donoghue, became co-patrons. The Journey of Healing’s message was: ‘You can help heal the wounds of the Stolen Generations. Get to know those in your locality. Arrange for them to tell their stories to the newspapers if they wish, or on local radio. See how you can help them with the difficulties they face.’ Thousands responded. Over 80,000 Journey of Healing badges were sold, each of which carry a message saying that by wearing it you pledge yourself to healing. All over the country, throughout the year but especially around 26 May, events are held to express solidarity with the Stolen Generations. Memorials started to go up.

All this kept the issue alive in the media and the Parliament, to the anger of the Government. The Government produced a report which said that, since only 10% of Aboriginal children were removed, ‘stolen generations’ was a misnomer. This provoked intense anger, and the Sorry Day patrons made their views known.
But the response to Sorry Day had impressed the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, and they decided to launch an even bigger event. They invited all Australians to join them on a walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. A quarter of a million people participated, many of them carrying placards saying ‘Sorry’. It was the largest demonstration in Australian history. Some who walked also paid for a plane to go up alongside the Bridge and write the word ‘Sorry’ in the sky. Many called it ‘The People’s Apology’.
Then a walk was held across a bridge in Melbourne, and 300,000 people participated. Every Australian city and many towns held similar events. In all, about a million people took part.

There were scores of meetings arranged between members of the Government and the Stolen Generations. But their strategy for staying in office was to ensure that the mainstream Australian community was, in their phrase, ‘relaxed and comfortable’, and they did this by focusing on the mainstream community at the expense of minorities. In fact, they indulged a good deal in scape-goating Aboriginal people, including the Stolen Generations, as did some of the media. Once the patron, Lowitja O’Donoghue gave an interview to an unscrupulous journalist. Next morning a twisted version was front-page news, and the Prime Minister immediately went on radio to say, ‘I told you so.’ But this made many in the party uncomfortable, as these front-page headlines show. The struggle between power and conscience was alive.

And many in the Establishment felt keenly the need for a genuine response to the report. The Governor-General, Sir William Deane, invited key activists to Government House, and encouraged them. ‘You have taken on the most difficult area of reconciliation that this country faces,’ he said. He knew the depth of trauma and despair among the Stolen Generations.

Then there was the conflict between differing views as to whether the movement should focus principally on healing the Stolen Generations or on confronting the Government. In the end it did both, though its principal focus was on healing. It aimed to reach out to all who suffered as a result of the removal policies, including the white people involved.

When a million people walked for reconciliation in 2000, the Government had to respond in some way. The Prime Minister announced that they would build Reconciliation Place, in the centre of Canberra and, he said, ‘it will include a memorial to those removed as children from their families.’

Then it was discovered that the Government was creating this memorial themselves, without any consultation with the Stolen Generations, and it was to include a sound-scape of children laughing happily. Immediately there were protests and demonstrations. The project ground to a halt.

Then key people in the movement went to the Government and said, ‘A memorial could be deeply healing if it is created properly. We are prepared to arrange consultations all over the country, not just with the Stolen Generations but with those who staffed the institutions, or fostered removed children. We believe we can reach consensus on what it should say.’ Eventually the Government agreed to this.

Teams we organised in every State and Territory, who consulted hundreds of people. Then they met for three days of passionate discussion. People listened to each other, and many changed their views. By the end they had consensus on a powerful statement about the removal policies.

It was taken to the Government and they sat on it. So, some key people told the Minister that they had invited Malcolm Fraser to give the Sorry Day address in the Great Hall of Parliament House. He had led their own party, yet they knew he would attack their refusal to accept the statement. Within days the movement was asked to discuss the wording. The Government negotiators tried to get it toned down and it was pointed out that it was approved by all sides. Eventually the movement’s Secretary had a phone call at 11pm on the eve of Sorry Day, saying, ‘The Prime Minister will accept the statement if you remove one paragraph’; the response was that was not possible. Next morning at 8am, two hours before Malcolm Fraser was to speak, another phone call said: ‘All right, you can have the whole text.’

And it was a magnificent text; here is one extract:

‘We the removed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children of Australia would urge you to look through our eyes and walk in our footsteps, to be able to understand our pain.  We call on all Australians to acknowledge the truth of our history, to enable us to move forward together on our journey on healing, because it is only the truth that will set us all free.’

The movement organisers always tried to reach out to the Government, as they knew the struggle that was going on in the ranks of the Prime Minister’s party room. When the memorial was to be unveiled, after much discussion, the Sorry Day Committee went to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs with the proposal that the Prime Minister unveil it. They hoped it would offer the chance for a fresh start. By this time the Minister had changed, and was now a blunt-spoken woman. ‘I’m not sending the Prime Minister out on a turkey shoot in an election year,’ she said. So that idea died.

All these struggles meant that the media had plenty of stories. Sorry Day organisers around the country worked hard to ensure that Sorry Day were organised and featured in the media. It became established as a significant national event.

Last year on Sorry Day the Howard Government was still in office, still refusing to apologise. Organisers booked the Great Hall of Parliament, and Malcolm Fraser and Lowitja O’Donoghue invited the diplomatic community. When we had received acceptances from 23 missions, organisers went to the Government and pointed out that they couldn’t ignore this event. They said, ‘Yes, but if we come we will only be attacked.’ Organisers agreed, but said that if they responded by doing more to meet the needs of the Stolen Generations, they might get positive headlines. This seemed to them the best solution, and they decided to fund 22 more counsellors for the Stolen Generations.

This was jointly decided by the Minister of Health and the Minister of Indigenous Affairs. And both of them were sitting in the front row when Lowitja O’Donoghue spoke, challenging the whole Government approach.

However, the Minister of Health’s speech was unexpected. He was one of the Prime Minister’s closest allies. But when he spoke, he broke with the Prime Minister’s approach. ‘The forcible removal of Indigenous children is an episode in our history of which we are rightly ashamed,’ he said. ‘The fundamental premise on which it was based – that children were better off away from their black families – was wrong, indeed repugnant. We should have known it then. We certainly know it now, and we do have to atone for it.’ There was conscience breaking through.

And eventually Australia elected a Prime Minister who was prepared to respond on that level, and to commit his Government to a massive programme to transform the condition of Aboriginal Australia. Whether he will succeed has yet to be seen. But the media’s approach to Aboriginal affairs has been transformed. Whereas last year stories portrayed Aboriginal people as hopeless addicts and worse, now there is vigorous debate on how best to make progress. And Aboriginal people are fully part of the debate, as they must be if there is to be progress.

What are the lessons from this? Perhaps, the most important is that statement by Kim Beazley Sr: ‘The key to social advance is not power but conscience.’ Conscience is a force in every nation. It can be roused through a campaign of integrity. And though it may take time, in the end it will win out over those who put pursuit of power ahead of conscience.

(adapted from a speech given by John Bond in London, May 2008)