Views from Western Australia :: Aboriginal Affairs

July 8, 2008

‘Funding Axe Hangs Over Remote Settlements’

That was the headline over a lead story in the West Australian newspaper on 7.7.08; the story ran over two pages and it was covered in the editorial. The West was reasonably balanced in it approach, unfortunately the government is not.

The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Michelle Roberts, is considering closing Aboriginal communities; she was reported as saying "a Sustainable Indigenous Communities policy was investigating where money should be spent to promote sustainability."

However, further investigation shows the policy has not been written yet! But it appears a ‘Taskforce’ to do the work has been established. The growing momentum towards this point over the last twelve months or so has been very concerning; it appears to be following on from Vanstone’s agenda and builds on the disastrous reforms of the CDEP.

No doubt, the taskforce will meet and consider each community via some criteria that are carefully articulated in the yet to be written policy document. One would hope that the criteria includes actually going to the said communities and talking to the people concerned. People need to be involved in every community and outstation that is being considered; otherwise this smacks of being another government decision ‘for their own good’.

The process currently lacks transparency, which is really problematic when you consider it is potentially making major decisions over the future of people’s lives. This policy must be properly developed including a period where it is available for public comment. Otherwise, this becomes the inevitable broad brush response, to a few identified ‘problem communities’. It needs to be acknowledged that many remote communities and outstations function well. Clearly, this cannot consider and evaluate communities on only the basis of economic cost; but what other criteria are the bean counters going to use.

This has the potential to be the third wave of dispossession and flies in the face of government policy to increase the population in areas like the Kimberley. It goes without saying that these people want to be on their country and history suggests this is principally a commitment to family, law and culture. People just want to get on with their lives.

This also has native title implications and will undoubtedly impact on other government policies like Aboriginal involvement in land care through Natural Resource Management. Then again, maybe it is the next wave of dispossession; perhaps this is what the Deputy Premier, Eric Ripper, was getting at when talking about the communities on the Dampier Peninsular at the recent National Native Title conference in Perth.

There is an enormous diversity of communities in the remote areas of Western Australia; how can a Perth based taskforce of bureaucrats can understand this is they do not visit country and speak to the people concerned. It also should be noted that people also often live in communities because they want to get away from the towns that don’t really want them there! Look at news reports about Broome from earlier this year as a case in point. Closing communities will push people into towns that are already not coping. This naturally brings to mind a point of comparison with similar sized white welfare towns, or towns that receive what is called ‘industry assistance’; one could well ask, “how come they continue to receive all kinds of government services and assistance?”

This announcement by the Minister has ‘problems’ written all over it and it is definitely not the way to develop social policy. It is disturbing that the minister has announced this and tied it into economic indicators and an undefined, unwritten policy document.

Funding these communities is called paying the rent on Aboriginal land. It is simple, until we have a treaty we keep paying the rent.

What a way to start NAIDOC week!

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June 30, 2008

4 deaths show us a lot about ourselves

Filed under: Aboriginal Affairs, Australian Culture

We occasionally need to look in a mirror and take a reality check. On the weekend four very young Noongar boys died in a tragic accident in a stolen car just outside of Perth. The sunday Times opened up a comments page, which in effect became a temporary blog on that tragic event. By dinner time last night there were about 600 comments posted on it. Without any specific analysis of proportions I think it is reasonable to say the majority were unsympathetic and many were quite vitriolic. Some other voices of reason and sympathy broke through. Some Noongars, also wrote, along with people who knew the boys personally; by and large they also copped a barrage of abuse as well from the bloggers who remain anonymous. Many said they are not ‘racist’; nevertheless, one can only wonder what the comments would have been if they were four white boys? In addition, one can only guess if the newspaper concerned would post such a blog if the four boys were not Indigenous?

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June 23, 2008

NATIVE TITLE IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Filed under: Aboriginal Affairs

Last week the Birriliburu people celebrated their strong connection to country in a native title determination covering 66,593sq km of their Central Desert land.

This comes relatively soon after the Federal Court upheld appeals made by both the State and Federal Government that left the Single Noongar native title claim in limbo on 23 April 2008 . This followed a dismissal in February 2007 of the Wongatha native title claim, fought in the Courts for over 10 years. In both cases the aspirations of native title claimants, their families and communities were put right back to square one.

The result of both these claims highlights the urgent need for a new approach to native title throughout Australia, particularly in Western Australia. The Federal Attorney General has recently indicated just that, announcing in February 2008 a new attitude and a new way of doing business in native title. He insists that native title can play a key role in forging a new relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

The Attorney General acknowledged that native title is but one way of recognising Indigenous peoples’ connection to land, however it was time to move away from technical legal arguments about the existence of native title. In other words, it is time to move away from the often tortuous struggles that drag on through years of appeals and counter-appeals in the Courts and to look at the principle that the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ ongoing connection with their land should be resolved by negotiation and mediation not litigation.

Of course, we have heard this mantra before in Western Australia. The Labor Policy Platform on native title from 2001 has been “Mediation not Litigation” – yet we have only seen mediation in areas where rich industry companies were seeking access to land.

In the Pilbara for example we have seen the Burrup and Maitland Industrial Estates Agreement where the Government negotiated a deal with the Ngarluma Yindjibarndi, Yaburara Mardudhunera and Wong-Goo-Tt-Oo peoples to allow companies such as Woodside access to areas of land on the Burrup Peninsula – an area rich in ancient Aboriginal rock art. The agreement provides that in exchange for the peoples’ consenting to the surrender and permanent extinguishment of native title to the area, they would receive a number of substantial benefits. Rock art has since been systematically destroyed or moved to create space for Woodside’s Pluto gas project.

A more positive deal was negotiated by Argyle Diamond. In September 2004 Argyle signed a Participation Agreement with Traditional Owners of the Miriuwung, Gidja, Malgnin and Woolah peoples. This agreement included employment, training and business opportunities for Traditional Owners and their families for the expansion of the Argyle site. The Participation Agreement recognises Traditional Owners as the landlords of the Argyle mining lease, while recognising Argyle’s right to continue its current and future mining operations. The Agreement establishes a long term relationship between the company and the Traditional Owners.

More recently the focus has turned to the Kimberley with the State Government and several mining companies negotiating to develop a single gas processing hub on a site suitable to the Traditional Owners of the region. The Browse Basin off the West Kimberley coast is the site of massive gas reserves, reserves that have the potential to be the biggest resource development certainly in Western Australia, perhaps in Australia. Native Title claimants, through the Kimberley Land Council are engaged in a process of negotiation that will bring significant benefits to Kimberley communities. The KLC and the native title claimants they represent are pursuing a deal with the State Government and the resource companies to ensure Kimberley communities get the best possible deal. It is being seen not only as a challenge to protect the natural environment, but also as an economic opportunity for Indigenous people throughout the region.

The Chair of the National Native Title Council, Mr Brian Wyatt, stated in a speech delivered at the recent Native Title Conference that “there has never been a better time for creative thinking in relation to native title, and tinkering around the edges of the system will not deliver meaningful outcomes for traditional owners. Nor will it allow Australia to hold its head up on the international stage. How we deal with native title is a fundamental test of who we are”.

The native title system should rather be seen as an avenue of economic development. What is needed is some policy and legal imagination that can close the gap between current understandings of economic development and the traditional rights to hunt, fish and gather. If we begin with the assumption that traditional owners have the right to benefit from the exploitation of all natural resources in their country, as stated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, then Indigenous economic development will need to be seen in an entirely different light.

It would not simply be a matter of enhancing economic rights as they were conceived two centuries ago. We would expect to see a range of options in local settlements that specifically promote non-native title outcomes, benefit sharing agreements, effective consultations regarding land use, joint environmental management regimes and sustainable development.

Native title is no longer just about fighting in the Courts to prove their ongoing connection to country, it is being recognised as a significant opportunity for claimants and their communities to gain real economic benefits. The current mining boom is creating opportunities for negotiating agreements for access to land and this means creating access to training, employment and business development.

It is time for native title to be viewed as one of the key opportunities for closing the disadvantage gap for Indigenous Australians.

It is time for the just and proper settlement of native title in Australia.

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May 21, 2008

Rob Riley

Filed under: Aboriginal Affairs, Historical, Australian Culture, Interesting People

The story of how Australia failed to make a lasting settlement with its Indigenous people is told in the life of one of the nation’s most widely recognised Aboriginal leaders, Rob Riley.

Riley’s life is a narrative of the contemporary Aboriginal politics in itself: land rights, native title, the campaign for a Treaty, the creation of ATSIC, the Royal Commission into the Deaths in Custody and the inquiry into the separation of Indigenous children from their families and communities.

In 1996 Riley hung himself in a motel room, undoubtedly pained by his past and disillusioned with the nature of race politics in Australia.

His life and death compel Australians to face our historical relationship with Aboriginal people. Riley intended his death to serve this purpose. His suicide note began: "White Australia you have much to answer for …"

Exactly what there is to answer for is revealed in Riley’s painful childhood and political career. It is the intertwining of these two parts which makes his story such an illuminating one for understanding race relations in Australia.

Riley’s family history reveals the grip of racist policies in Australia and how these created intergenerational damage to Aboriginal people. Under the infamous WA 1905 Aborigines Act, his maternal grandmother was incarcerated in Moore River Native Settlement, north of Perth as a teenager. A ministerial warrant was used to remove her from her family in the late 1920s and, despite repeated protestations to secure her freedom, she languished in the institution for the remainder of her life. She once told authorities "this place send anyone mad".

Her children - Rob’s mother and four other children - were born in this State run institution, but removed from her immediate care.

When she died at the age of 39 they were sent away, in the back of a truck, to the Church run Roelands Mission which was hundreds of miles to the south.

Released at 16 after little education and training and with no "country" to return to, Riley’s mother fell pregnant, giving birth to him.

Riley became the third successive generation of his family to be removed. He was taken in infancy in 1954 - still under the provisions of the 1905 Act - to spend the next twelve years in Sister Kate’s Children’s Home in the suburbs of Perth where he was denied knowledge of both his family and his Aboriginal heritage. He was told his family was dead.

Riley was never able to resolve this conflicting experience: the bonds of growing up with "brothers" and "sisters"; the loneliness of wanting to belong to someone; the sexual abuse inflicted on him; and the denial of his culture.

Eventually, reunited with his Mother and family after a chance meeting with an Uncle, he was plunged into dire poverty when forced to live on a reserve under the policy of segregation operating in rural Western Australia at that time. He lived in a draughty tin shed for three years.

He experienced his first encounter with "street level" racism when a group of local boys challenged his right as an Aboriginal to be walking on the town’s footpath. He would never again be silent in the face of racism.

But racism became the defining experience of Riley’s political life. In the late 1970s he encountered the institutionalisation of racism in the Western Australian police force and its justice system. Aboriginal people were being beaten into submission and incarcerated in shocking numbers.

Rob saw all this working at the fledging Aboriginal Legal Service. An angry member of the emerging wave of ’70s radical Aboriginal politics, he also was optimistic that the political system could right the wrongs of the past and the present.

Noonkanbah was a turning point. Riley was at this remote Kimberly pastoral station in 1980 when the Premier, the arch conservative Sir Charles Court, helped arrange a convoy of mining trucks with police protection to break the first determined protest to protect sacred sites in the modern era. Riley witnessed first-hand the combined power of international capital and the State to resist Aboriginal rights.

It was a pattern repeated many times in the next 20 years. Riley was leader of the National Aboriginal Conference in 1985 when the mining industry funded the notorious media campaign to convince the Hawke and Burke governments to back down on agreed principles to land rights. From this campaign, Riley believed racism in Australian politics had developed into an all-encompassing system of power and community prejudice. He never forgave Hawke for backing away from the historic opportunity to forge a settlement with Aboriginal people.

When he went to work for Federal Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Gerry Hand, in the late 1980s, Riley had seen the power of race regularly played out in Australian politics. He was well versed in its instruments: political populism; media propaganda; historical denialism; and ideological righteousness. However, nothing prepared him for the backlash directed at Hand’s office over plans for a Treaty, the creation of ATSIC, and the establishment of the Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody, which were all attacked with great and sustained vitriol.

Riley’s encounter with racism intensified when he returned to Western Australia in the early 1990s to head the Aboriginal Legal Service. Here the skirmishes over the ‘lock-them-up’ approach to Aboriginal juvenile crime fuelled by talk-back radio, the continuing anti-Aboriginal stance of the mining industry and the lack of government commitment to implementing the recommendations emanating from the Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody had him locked in combat with the Lawrence and Court governments.

But it was his struggle with the Keating government over native title that completed his disillusionment with Australian politics. The painful split in Aboriginal ranks over the native title bill saw Riley publicly backing the need for legislation enshrining native title - fearing another backlash from conservative states - while distressed that many would have their rights wiped away.

Worn out by continual conflict with governments, despairing at the failure of psychiatric intervention and plagued by the trauma of his past, Riley slid into a deep depression. He contemplated long about ending his life and had a clear grasp of the reasons for his decision: the personal and political torments were too much.

His death shocked the community.

Riley’s life contains powerful, universal themes: early triumph over adversity; the search for justice; and disillusionment over reformist politics. Not all will agree on either his vision or his political methods.

The legacy of Riley’s life is to force us to reflect on what his story says about the nation.
________________________________________
Further reading:
Rob Riley: An Aboriginal Leader’s Quest for Justice,
Quentin Beresford
Pub’ed by Aboriginal Studies Press (Canberra, 2006).

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Noonkanbah has a special place in Australian history

Filed under: Aboriginal Affairs, Historical

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

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May 16, 2008

A short history of the national response to the ‘Stolen Generations’, ‘Sorry Day’ and the ‘Apology’

Filed under: Aboriginal Affairs, Historical, Australian Culture

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)

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May 6, 2008

Noongar Native Title over Metropolitical Perth

Filed under: Aboriginal Affairs, Historical

During April the Federal Court upheld an appeal against native title over Perth; but it did not rule out the possibility that native title continues to exist over Perth.

I have written previously that this shows how difficult it is for Aboriginal people to prove their continuing connection to country.

The Federal Court ruled that Willcox had erred on two elements of his 2006 decision over Perth; one of these being whether claimants have a connection with the Perth metropolitan area.

In my view the Appeal judges have erred on this point.

The Single Noongar application was commenced on 10 September 2003 by 80 named applicants on behalf of the Noongar community. This claim covers the whole of the south-west of Western Australia. The boundary of the claim area commences at a point north of Jurien Bay on the west coast, proceeds in an easterly direction to a point north of Moora, and then roughly south-easterly to a point on the southern coast between Bremer Bay and Esperance. The claim excludes all land and waters over which native title had been extinguished by a past act of the Commonwealth or state governments. On 9 October 2003, the court made orders that the Combined Metro application be combined with the Single Noongar application, with the Single Noongar application being the lead application.

The 80 claimants were not making a specific claim over Perth. The reason for the ’separate question’ over Perth, was that the WA government wanted the metropolitan area heard first.

That is to say the Perth part of the ‘Single Noongar Claim’ was heard first (and separately) at the request of the State Government, not the claimants.

The claimants were never making a specific claim over Perth.

The 2006 findings of fact regarding the Noongar community and the native title rights were likely to extend to the greater Single Noongar Claim area increasing the likelihood that native title will be held to exist in that area. This decision smacks of conservative judicial politics.

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April 29, 2008

The Anglican Church and Aboriginal Children in Western Australia from 1838 to 1920

Filed under: Aboriginal Affairs, Historical

In 1829 Frederick Irwin came to the Swan River Colony as military commander; five years later he and George Moore went to Ireland and England and established the Western Australian Missionary Society (the Bush Church Aid traces its roots back to this Society being founded and the Intercontinental Church Society also sees it as important part of its history of establishment).

The Western Australian Missionary Society subsequently purchased an 866-acre site that stretched from the Swan River right up into the hills; the 69-acre “Swanleigh” property is what remains of that land.

The Society sent an Italian, Dr Luis Giustiniani, as its first missionary; he arrived at the Swan Parish in 1836. He built two houses - his home and an Aboriginal mission - and after advocating for Aboriginal people Giustiniani left the colony amid controversy in 1838.

Revd William Mitchell followed, he arrived with his family and a governess named Anne Breeze in 1838. Within a month Mitchell established a mission school on the Swan site for settlers’ children and Aboriginal children with Breeze assisting.

A second Anglican school was established at Fremantle by George King in 1841, it continued till 1850.

In 1841 Abraham Jones re-opened Giustiniani’s mission school in Guildford it also continued until 1850.

In May 1842, after arriving the year before, Revd John Wollaston proposed a plan to remove Aboriginal children to schools where they would be educated at the cost of settler families, who would then have the option of employing them as domestic servants.

In 1843 Mitchell established a second Mission School at Middle Swan and at Upper Swan Revd Postlethwaite established a Mission school for settlers and Aboriginal children which ran until 1848.

In the 1850s Swan Cottage was built at the Middle Swan site to accommodate young ‘native girls’ for the Mission School and Wollaston was granted 60 acres in Albany for an Institution. The children from the King’s School in Fremantle were then moved to the Albany institution. Henry Camfield and his wife Anne managed the Albany Institution; Mrs Camfield being Anne Breeze who had worked in Mitchell’s Middle Swan School over a decade earlier.

When Hale was appointed as Perth’s first Bishop in 1856 he is said to have had three main areas of interest: care of the Aborigines, the spiritual welfare of the convicts, and a desire to provide higher education for the ‘sons of the better class settlers’.

In 1871 the Albany Native Institution was the longest operating educational establishment for Aboriginal children in the colony and the Camfields wanted to retire; but nobody could be found to operate the Institution. Hale was troubled by this and offered his resignation with the intention of going to manage the Albany institution himself - a delegation talked him out of resigning.

With no solution to the problem in Albany, Hale purchased a block adjacent to Bishop’s House in the city (cnr of St George’s Terrace and Spring St), built a house on it to accommodate and educate Aboriginal children and brought the children from Albany to it. This was all done at his own expense.

After Hale left Perth in 1875, his successor, Bishop Parry, took over the direct management of the Institution until 1888 when he moved the children to the newly established the Swan Native and Half Caste Mission on the Middle Swan site.

The purpose built two-storey building in the City was known as Hale House. After operating as the Bishop’s “Native and Half Caste Institution” for 16 years the land was eventually absorbed into the Bishop’s See.

The Swan Native and Half Caste Mission operated on the site at the same time as the Swan Boys’ Orphanage and later the girls’ orphanage that had operated in Adelaide Terrace also moved there and was known as the Swan Girls’ Orphanage. The Mission and Orphanages were separated by some acreage and the Jane Brook. The Orphanages were predominantly for non-Aboriginal children, although some children from the Mission, particularly older boys, stayed at the Boys Orphanage. The department that was responsible for Aboriginal affairs appears to have been unhappy with this practice and after one visit instructed those responsible to move all the Aboriginal boys out of the Orphanage back to the Mission.

During this period some substantial grants of land were made to the Diocesan Trustees by the Crown in relation to these various institutions.

Later, the “Aborigines Act 1905” made the Chief Protector the legal guardian of ‘every Aboriginal and half-caste child’ under 16 years. AO Neville was appointed Chief Protector in 1915 and subsequently opened two major reserves, at Moore River near Mogumber and Carrolup River near Katanning.

In 1920 Neville discontinued the Government subsidy to Church run Institutions. This apparently forced the closure of the Swan Native and Half Caste Mission with the remaining children sent to Moore River Native Settlement, Mogumber.

Neville’s decision and the sending of the Mission children to Mogumber effectively ended more than 80 years of Anglican work with Aboriginal children who were predominantly Noongar - that is to say children of Aboriginal children from the Perth metropolitan area and the greater South West. During that period of time the Anglican Church had responsibility for children who were moved from Fremantle to Albany (1850s), from Albany to Perth (1872), from Perth to Swan (1888) and from Swan to Mogumber (1920).

P.S. this is an abridged version of a longer paper I have written that was published in the March 2007 ‘Anglican Messenger’ Western Australia

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April 23, 2008

No Decision on Noongar Native Title

Filed under: Aboriginal Affairs, Historical, Australian Culture

Today (23. 4. 08) the full bench of the Federal Court upheld an appeal by the West Australian and federal governments against the granting of native title over Perth.

But the court did not rule that native title no longer existed over Perth, opting instead to refer the question back to a Federal Court judge for another hearing.

This ruling shows how difficult it is for Aboriginal people to prove their continuing connection to country.

The Federal Court assumed that in 1829 the laws and customs governing land throughout the claim area were those of a single community.

However, it held that the 2006 decision failed to consider two matters that claimants were required to establish in order for their application to succeed.

The first being whether there has been continuous acknowledgment and observance of the traditional laws and customs by the single Noongar society from sovereignty until now.

The second being whether claimants have a connection with the Perth Metropolitan area.

The Court therefore set aside the 2006 decision and has remitted it for future determination.

This decision puts the Noongar’s native title aspirations back to square one.

The Premier along with other Cabinet Ministers publicly acknowledges that Noongar people are the traditional owners and custodians of the land Perth sits on and the South West.

This decision provides an opportunity for Premier Carpenter to show some leadership by engaging with Noongar people and negotiating a just settlement. This would be an important step forward in the reconciliation process.

I also hope that the WA Government conducts itself with dignity and acts respectfully toward the Noongar people.

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March 27, 2008

After February 13…

Filed under: Aboriginal Affairs, Historical, Australian Culture

I have been asked many times whether I think the momentum from the apology to the Stolen Generations is being sustained. I actually think that the momentum that has been generated is fascinating.

Last week (20/3/08) the Prime Minister, in a speech he made while signing a commitment to ‘closing the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people within a generation in the Great Hall of Parliament House Canberra, said he could not undertaken this commitment without first undertaking the apology. I believe the apology was the first step for Mr Rudd.

But, what was very encouraging to me was the response of people everywhere who took part in the apology. They took pride in it and allowed themselves to be moved.

It was never going to work for everyone, but it seems that most Australians feel better knowing that the apology was necessary. Now that it has been made, people appear to be motivated to build on this part of the reconciliation puzzle.

The apology has been a transforming experience for Australia and it is a critical step in building relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens. Without that kind of relationship, we have never able to work together in the way we have needed to.

The apology introduced respect into a relationship that often included goodwill and compassion, but from which respect has often been missing.

Now there appears to be a willingness to do things differently — to ensure our actions are the right ones to deliver meaningful, measurable results. For example, closing the life expectancy gap will require a long-term, properly resourced national plan that has bipartisan commitment. The plan has to go well beyond combating violence and substance abuse to tackle the many factors involved in turning abject policy failure into success. Kevin Rudd’s Government is is emphasising the importance of two key approaches: basing policy on evidence of what works, and respectful engagement at all stages with Indigenous communities.

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