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Turn back the clock! What’s to look forward to?
The Byron Shire Echo Volume 33 #48 • May 8, 2019
Native Title – what the local recognition means After last week’s news that the Federal Court recognised the Native Tile of the Bundjalung People of Byron Bay, the Arakwal-Bumberbin, many are wondering what this means in terms of day-to-day life in the Byron Shire. Australian law has recognised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Native Title since the historic Mabo case in 1992. Native title is the recognition by Australian law that the Indigenous people, who were the traditional owners of an area prior to 1788, have ongoing rights and interests in land, seas, and waters that derive from their traditional laws and customs. Native Title rights and interests may include rights to access an area for traditional purposes, like camping or to conduct ceremonies and cultural activities; to visit, protect, and maintain important places and sites; to hunt, fish, and take natural resources and water; to teach law and custom on traditional Country; and be accompanied by others when undertaking those activities. The consent determination in and around Byron Bay, Brunswick Heads, Bangalow, and Mullumbimby will be the 11th in NSW, and only the second over sea country in NSW and the first over such a densely settled area. This consent determination concluded the current longest-running Native Title claim in NSW after 18 years of litigation. The Arakwal-Bumberbin were able to provide strong evidence of their continuing traditional connection to Country and this formed the basis of the negotiations with the state and Commonwealth, and other parties. The local mob say this is a celebration time for them and have asked the community to allow Arakwal people to have this time to reflect on the elders’ journey and what lies ahead for them as Native Title holders. This is an exciting time, but a lengthy process of legalities lies ahead. Arakwal Corp GM Sharon Sloane says there is a registration process, and until that is finalised, Arakwal Corporation is continuing with running their core business. ‘One in particular is the Cultural Centre for Arakwal,’ says Ms Sloane. ‘The board of directors this weekend are focusing on what a cultural centre will look like, and are visiting northern Queensland to gain some greater perspectives of what works.’ Sloane says the Arakwal people are keen to develop their own unique cultural and recreational programs that add to the experience for visitors to this great area. ‘A cultural centre and carpark will employ Arakwal people, offer cultural tours, and connect and be the link not only between the town of Byron and the Cape Byron Lighthouse, but also a key to ensuring that local culture and stories are told and understood.’ Eve Jeffery, guest editorial
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coMo’s campaign is going back to the future – quite a long way back. John Howard has been exhumed as the great grey hope and is being paraded among the marginal electorates to enthuse the faithful and woo the undecided – assuming, that is, that they know who he is, or at least was. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard have been brought into cameo roles in the Labor campaign, but those two can be counted in living memory. Little Johnny’s reign ended some 12 years ago, when a great many younger voters – who have enrolled in record numbers – were not even in their teens and will see him, if they notice him at all, as a relic from a bygone era. His legacy, divisive at the time, is now little more than a footnote in history: gun law reform (good), the GST (reluctantly accepted), the 2001 dog whistling and deceit at the Tampa election (bad), and the loss of his government and his own seat in 2007 (depends where you stand). For the Liberal devotees, steeped in wishful nostalgia, it is a reminder of a golden age, before the times of leadership turmoil and constant civil war – repressed for the campaign, but far from settled – and ineffective government. To others, he may well be seen as irrelevant at best and an unhappy reminder of a grim past at worst. Whatever the verdict, it is hard to believe that the comparison with the current prime minister will lead them into transports of delight. So Howard is, in the end, just another distraction from the main game. But really, there was little alternative if the campaign was not to degenerate into an endlessly repetitive monologue as Scott Morrison shouts his way around the country. It suits ScoMo to take the role of a one-man band, but even he must see that he needs a supporting cast, and the options are few and far between. A lot of his ministers – a majority in fact – have been sidelined with the justifiable suspicion that they are too flaky or repulsive to be exposed to public view. Howard can be spun as reasonable, rational, and intelligible – even coherent. He may be hopelessly outdated, but he is unlikely to prove embarrassing, which is, for the moment, all that matters: the current lot have been embarrassing enough for a dozen campaigns. So, back to the future – back well before 2013, when the coalition gained power and the
chaos and dysfunction took over. Morrison is hoping that the electorate will suffer from collective short-term memory loss for the last five and a half years. But at the same time he is relying on standing on his record – with no serious agenda for moving forward, he has no choice. And there are real problems even with that limited program. The strong economy that he so fervently espouses, the return to surplus and the prospect of another million new jobs, is already looking decidedly rubbery. The economy is not looking a picture of health – in fact it is at best sluggish and in some areas positively stagnant, so much so
The economy is not looking a picture of health – in fact it is at best sluggish and in some areas positively stagnant Mungo MacCallum that inflation has stalled completely and the Reserve Bank is seriously contemplating another cut to already historically low interest rates in a desperate attempt to kick it into life – not quite the heady extravagance that characterised the boom times in the Howard years. Bill Shorten’s six-second grab about everything going up except your wages is actually an overly optimistic slogan – nothing much is going up at all, and certainly not the kind of economic activity needed to push growth and, eventually, a real lift to living standards. Unemployment may be under control, but under-employment is rife – in some sectors, chronic. And there are neither the conditions nor the policies that can produce a quick fix. So perhaps in the circumstances a whiff of Howard-era nostalgia is not such a bad idea. If the future is bleak, harking back to a mythical golden age in the distant past beats slitting your wrists or, more likely, throwing out the present government. Which brings us, inevitably, to the two leaders’ debates last week. Given that both were consigned to little-watched channels and produced no knock-out blows, both were regarded as relatively unimportant. But in fact
they emerged as potential game changers, to the clear benefit of Bill Shorten. The unpopular opposition leader and his supporters were at first reluctant to engage – they feared their man would be overwhelmed by the slickness of the professional marketeering skill of ScoMo. But after a shaky start, Shorten hit his straps and the audience in the first encounter awarded him victory by a majority of more than two to one. The Murdoch press, of course, denialists to a man and woman, said this was clearly a mistake: Shorten may have won the hearts, but Morrison won the heads. Given that the Murdochians have spent the last five years explaining that the coalition is the saviour of the country and the majority of voters who fail to acknowledge this divinely inspired truth are too stupid or gullible to appreciate this law of nature, this was hardly surprising. But after the second debate, a more combative affair in which Shorten once again secured a narrow victory, even they had to admit that Shorten had done pretty well, although they still insisted that Morrison had offered more substance. But the whole point was that he hadn’t – he was still back to the future. The studio audience asked wideranging and sometimes bizarre questions on policy, and Shorten replied in terms of what he would do, his plans for change. Morrison, with no serious forward agenda, was largely reduced to boasting about the achievements of the last two terms of government. And the problem is that however history will eventually rate them, the voters are simply not impressed. They are unhappy and impatient, and even if they are not completely convinced that Shorten’s solutions are the right ones, they are at least feasible alternatives. Shorten is becoming more acceptable, even slightly more popular – even before the debates Newspoll was nudging his numbers upwards. He will never be a Bob Hawke, and may not even surpass Morrison’s unimpressive figures, but he can no longer be considered unelectable. And remember, even the now-sainted John Howard was once dismissed as out of the picture. Another reason that bringing attention to him is not such a brilliant idea from the ScoMo think tank.
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