The Guardian 8 June, 2005
Arrogance on display
Bob Briton
Eight years after Aboriginal leaders were moved to turn their backs to John Howard at the
first reconciliation conference in Melbourne, the Howard government's arrogance towards
Indigenous Australians was on display again in Canberra last week. On the second day of
the Reconciliation Australia conference held in the Old Parliament House, Indigenous
Affairs Minister Amanda Vanstone imposed on the organisers to reorder the agenda so that
she could leave early to attend a Liberal party-room meeting.
On the first day, while promising to maintain native title and land rights into the future, the PM
alluded once more to new forms of ownership that would "… add opportunities for families and
communities to build economic independence and wealth through use of their communal land
assets". At the conference and during Reconciliation Week (May 27-June 3) Howard, Vanstone
and their supporters took every opportunity to talk down and set aside "symbolism" — such as a
government apology to the Aboriginal people. Instead they promoted their own brand of "practical
reconciliation", notably the controversial Shared Responsibility Agreements (SRAs).
At the beginning of her address last week Vanstone apologised to WA Governor Lieutenant-
General John Sanderson for the change in the agenda but not to Aboriginal elder Lowitja
O'Donoghue who had already risen to speak as arranged. Amanda Vanstone's gaff was
emblematic. Having overseen the destruction of the elected Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Commission and "mainstreamed" its programs into several public service departments, her lack of
consideration for Aboriginal elders at the conference added insult to injury.
Two younger members of the audience turned their backs to the minister while four others,
including former ATSIC chairman Geoff Clark, walked out. Adriana Taylor of Achieving
Reconciliation Tasmania stood and expressed her embarrassment at the Minister's behaviour to
Vanstone herself before she had managed to leave the room. Lowitja O'Donoghue admitted to
having "felt totally put down at what has happened just now".
While some participants and observers were pleased at the PM's less provocative language, there
was no change in the disempowering policy direction of the federal government. Howard pledged
to "meet the Indigenous people more than halfway if necessary" in a reference to the Shared
Responsibility Agreements now attached to certain state and federal spending. There are now 52
agreements covering 43 communities around Australia. The first was signed last year and involved
funding for the installation of petrol bowsers at the remote WA community of Mulan in exchange for
an undertaking to shower the community's children and wash their faces every day.
Wayne Gibbons, secretary of the Office of Indigenous Policy Co-ordination, said the SRA "reforms"
will improve program delivery. "The government's approach now is not to leave the money at the
front door in a paper bag and say 'over to you', but to sit down and negotiate what it is we are going
to do for them", he told the media last week.
However, not everyone is so sure the top-down "petrol-for-hygiene" and "no-school-no-pool"
approach will cope with the myriad problems besetting impoverished Aboriginal communities.
Democrats Senator Aden Ridgeway pointed out that at the current rate it will take 25 years to sign
SRAs for some of the basic requirements of the 1200 communities nationwide. He also pointed out
that most of the work associated in a publicity kit to the much-vaunted SRAs had already been
done as part of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) process.
In foreshadowing proposals for changes to current land tenure arrangements, Howard said, "We
recognise that communal interest in, and spiritual attachment to, land is fundamental to Indigenous
culture." However, he again raised the issue of encouraging individual home ownership and other
"new forms of tenure on communal land" that will not, according to the PM, cut across or extinguish
communal title. He could well be speaking of "preserving" Native Title and hopes for land rights in
the same way he speaks of the new industrial relations legislation "preserving" awards and the
functions of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission that are useful to workers.
Pat Dodson summed up the current political crisis facing Indigenous people in his contribution to
last week's reconciliation conference:
"The governments of today have unilaterally decided that we are to be mainstreamed and
assimilated into a society that elevates the individual above traditions and values forged over more
than 50,000 years around community and belonging in extended family relations centred on kinship
rules and responsibilities."