Diversity without dissent Local celebrations genteel affairs

THERE was a brilliant cartoon from Johannes Leak this week that I believe encapsulates the thoughts of many Australians regarding the Voice to parliament, a Makarrata Commission, changing the date of Australia Day, altering the flag and the overdone acknowledgements of the traditional owners of the land.

It depicts dark figures smashing their way through her front window as the operator of an Alice Springs general store is on the phone yelling, “Quick, I need a constitutionally enshrined first nations voice to parliament and the establishment of a Makarrata Commission for the purpose of ...”

In May 2017 at Uluru a meeting of 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders produced the ‘Uluru Statement from the Heart’, calling for the establishment of a ‘First Nations Voice’ in the Australian Constitution and a ‘Makarrata Commission’ to supervise a process of ‘agreement-making’ and ‘truth-telling’ between governments and Aboriginal and Torres Islander peoples.

Since 1968 we have had numerous advisory bodies and commissions in relation to Aboriginal affairs. The most notorious was the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Commission, eventually disbanded by Bob Hawke as it had failed in every way. None of them has succeeded in fixing any of the problems we still have today. What solutions another such body, a race based Voice sitting in Canberra costing millions of dollars with a bloated bureaucracy will provide to the root causes of our problems I am not sure.

We are entitled to be informed of the details as to how it will work. Of particular concern is whether or not parliamentary responses to it are justiciable, given the number of activist judges and lawyers we have. Former High Court judges Hayne and Callinan have opined that they will be. This would be a lawyers’ feast.

The elephant in the room is the issue of who qualifies as an Aboriginal and so is able to vote for and participate in the

By Cr GAVAN HOLT

Voice. The tripartite test of Aboriginality as determined in the Mabo (2) case is not supported by many, including Aboriginal Australians. Warraimaay woman Victoria Grieve Williams says that the current fashion of self- identifying as an Aboriginal person is out of control. At the 2021 census the number of Aboriginals grew by 25%. She adds, “The increase in “box tickers” has a huge impact on government spending, on Closing the Gap statistics, on cultural representation and on Aboriginal health and wellbeing.”

Henry Ergas is one of the great writers and thinkers of our times. He has said, “Always central to the Enlightenment tradition, the principle that all citizens have the same constitutional rights and obligations has endured as a beacon of Western thought.” He asks if in Australia some citizens are going to be made more equal than others.

Loddon Shire’s Aboriginal Community Partnership Plan demonstrates Council’s support for activities that will assist in bringing about positive change in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander residents. The Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners and Welcome to Country Policy grew out of this Plan. At the Loddon Shire Council meeting last week there was debate coming out of the review of this policy. I find the repeated use of traditional owner recognition at public meetings unnecessary and patronizing, but of course others differ.

That matter is insignificant compared with the division that is growing in Australia with the biggest political issue that is confronting us in 2023, the referendum on the Voice.

I do not accept that Australia is institutionally racist. Almost all Australians, whether born here or the 29 per cent born overseas want the best for Aboriginal Australians, respect that they are proud of their culture and history and accept that all was not perfect with what happened to them after Europeans arrived. The vast majority of the descendants of the Aboriginal people that were here when white people arrived have benefited from that arrival. Australia has spent billions of dollars trying to help Aboriginal people, far more per head than for non-Aboriginal Australians. Aboriginal people are equal under the law in every way. The majority of Aboriginal people who are incarcerated are so because of Aboriginal on Aboriginal crimes.

We are in a chaotic mess in Aboriginal affairs. It is one of the great failures of Australian politics. There is too much virtue signaling such as recognition of traditional owners, smoking ceremonies and flag flying and not enough constructive action.

Of those who identify as Aboriginal in Australia about 20 per cent have not integrated into modern life and live in settlements where precepts such as payback and humbug still exist. This is where our problems lie and despite the billions of dollars poured into the Aboriginal industry, the gap still exists. It is the plight of these people that must be at the centre of our agenda.

There are two great Australian women who should be listened to on Aboriginal issues, Bess Nungarrayi Price and her daughter Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. The apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree with them.

Bess is a Walpiri woman born in Yuendumu where she lived in humpies for the first years of her life and became a mother at thirteen. She pulled herself out of her circumstances and studied to be a teacher and also became a member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. Jacinta is now a senator for the Northern Territory. Great Aboriginal voices.

Out of all the white noise surrounding the problems of Aboriginal communities in the bush, highlighted by what is currently happening in Alice Springs, listen to these two. They rationally outline practical steps that should be taken to solve the problems.

Bess was a supporter of the Howard government’s Northern Territory Intervention with its bans on alcohol and restrictions on how welfare payment could be spent. She was critical of Amnesty International for its opposition to the Intervention. She said, “When aboriginal women in Central Australia ask for help, when they are killed, raped and beaten, when they cry for their abused children you ignore them and you support those who are oppressing them. When the government tries to do something for them you call them racist and you blather on about the UN.”

To quote Jacinta, “Because of Stolen Generations policy recommendations and the accompanying applied stigmatization of the removal of Aboriginal children as being “racist” we now have a situation in which children are left in dysfunction and abuse. We now have a neglected, abused and traumatized generation and they’re on display every night on our streets – if not breaking into the homes of locals.”

Loddon’s Australia Day ceremonies are genteel affairs where we recognize outstanding citizens and celebrate our great strengths, imported from Britain, of parliamentary democracy, the rule of law, a free press, property rights and free speech, although this last one is being challenged by the thought police.

As I left the ceremony at Wedderburn on Thursday I thought this is a world apart from the activism that is occurring in our cities and the troubles in our inland Aboriginal communities. Everyone seemed to be as one even though as an example of our diversity there are over 10 per cent of students at Wedderburn College identifying as Aboriginal. Then again, maybe the dissenters didn’t attend.

CrHoltistheWedderburnWard representativeonLoddonShireCouncil