P9,! ME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
ADDRESS TO HOPE VALE COMMUNITY, QUEENSLAND
24 FEBRUARY 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
Thank you members of the Hope Vale Council, other distinguished members
of communities in the Cape, my colleague Peter Dodd and mostly of course
members of the Hope Vale Community, men and women, and boys and girls.
It's a great pleasure for me to come to Hope Vale I'm very much in your debt
for opening up your community and your hearts to me and my colleagues, to
get to know you, and to get to understand you, and to, see how you are living
here, and what your aspirations for yourselves and your community are. This
is a valuable thing, and one which I have taken an opportunity... . which I have
taken on earnestly. Notionally, I came to lend support to the Cape York
Health Council. For all the reasons that Noel ( Pearson) just said, that to make
a health strategy work or any strategy work it can't be just the leadership or
the Government it has to be everybody. And just as we are speaking about
health, the non-Aboriginal community has seen a dramatic change. For
instance in the incidence of heart attacks in the last 20 years. That change
didn't come simply because there were more doctors in each suburb, or that
people were more likely to go them, it came because of a change in the way
Australians have responded to their health needs as a community. They have
changed their diet, they have changed their exercise, they have changed their
levels of stress, and they have sought to live longer. So they have been given
leadership by the medical community, but they have followed it through as the
broader community.
This is the central point the, Noel made to you, and the point that I
would endorse that whatever we do in Aboriginal Australia, has to be done
between the Government, the Australian community, and you as a community.
In other words, it will never be done simply by one group only it will always be
a group effort. It is about basically cooperation and organisation, as
Gerhardt ( Pearson) made the point. And it is about all of you being a part of it.
Now, great changes have been made. In 1967, Aboriginal people didn't have
the right to vote in this country they were not recognised in the Constitution.
That changed. There was an enhanced consciousness about that. There has
been progress since more recently, you have seen the Commonwealth
Parliament enact the Mabo legislation, coming from an important decision that
said that your customs and tradition were not just something that the
Australian community had to assimilate and accommodate, but that it was
actually a source of the Common Law. That your traditions and customs were
a source of Australian Common Law. That was a declaration, but for it to be
law, the Government had to make a law. Anid we passed that law with the
help of a lot of you a year ago" We are now trying to.. . this week I
will introduce the Bill for theiL and Fund, that gives you the chance
to buy land that formerly has been . anated from you, and that you can't
secure under Mabo. Now why are we doing these things? Simply because
we feel that a wrong has been done yes, we do. There was the historic
denunciation of your rights, the removal of your land, the attack upon your
population this community is seeking to right those wrongs, and we are
seeking to right them in land. Land we know is important to you, because it is
a part of the course of empowerment of Aboriginal people. That because of
this spiritual connection you have with your lives and the land, the land is
important to you. For us to make a reconciliation with you, the land must be
part of the parcel it must be part of the package.
But part of that is also about giving you the right to live a traditional lifestyle.
That is, having the capacity to use that land. And as Noel said eloquently,
" living long enough to use it as well" That is, not just having it but living on
it, enjoying it, and living lone this is what I think most Australians
wish for you as a Community thtse things are possible. And I think that
while it is entirely true that the Mission stations have now become Aboriginal
Communities and they do have their leaders, and you do have your
strategies, and you are getting your land we know that whenever Aboriginal
people move towards a traditional lifestyle, their connection with the land not
only empowers them, but changes their psychology, and it also changes the
quality of their life. It changes their health, and it means that their health
improves, their well-being improves their sense of well-being their sense of
mind, and so the out-station movement is an important movement in the return
to that traditional style of life which the land gives you the capacity to create.
So, can I say that as Prime Minister, I see the whole story of Aboriginal
Australia and the reconciliation as being in a number of parts. The
recognition, the vote, the land, the helth, the leadership, the empowerment,
the enjoyment the happiness. ~ i~ use the whole point of public policy is
human happiness, and what greatsr cbjective could we have for you that you
are happy and well?
Now, health is a problem. It is a problem because of congregation in part, it is
a problem because of inadequacy of resources, and we know crowded
accommodation in communities, former mission stations areas produces all
sorts of health problems. And we have not seen the public facilities there in
the environmental health: like the roads, the sewerage systems, the hospitals,
the immunisations, the various things that the non-Aboriginal community has.
But we are also seeing a less than complete understanding on the part of
Aboriginal communities about the way they live their own lives about their
diet, about how they actually.. . about their hygiene, about how they actually
diminish the incidence of infection, about prevention once infection comes
along. None of this, of course, can be separated from education, and one of the
things I was delighted about today was to see in this school which has
produced now so many quite famous people, and articulate people, leaders
indeed of the Australian community to see so many young Aboriginal
Australians learning those skills: literacy, numeracy and empowerment. It is
that education which is going to underpin any community understanding and
strategy about how Aboriginal people join with the Government of the
Commonwealth and the Government of the States and Local Government in
improving their health and life opportunities. So, I come here to Hope
Vale... . first of all I come to a community which is welcoming, I come to one
which is open, I come to one which has a sense of enjoyment and pleasure in
its own company, and I come to one that is trying to grapple with its change of
its history, and its' opportunities, and to do something about the problems of
health. And I have been told about the problems that you can't get the Flying
Doctor in if the airport is bad. That there is no point in trying to protect
yourselves from things like scabies, or from diseases of the kidneys, or
nephritis, if in fact there is a run-over of sewerage. So the sewerage system
has to work it has to be adequate. It's not good for Aboriginal women to be
leaving their communities to have their children none of our women do that.
Why should you? Because you have the nurturing and you have the support
that you need but you don't have the midwives, you don't have the facilities,
and you don't have the doctors when you need them, because you don't have
the facilities to get the doctors here, and they won't work here. All this implies
to me that there is a reasonably comprehensive strategy to take this on.
First of all, a recognition of the problem. This is what. the Cape York Health
Council is doing it is recognising the problem. It knows that the solution is in
all of you adopting it. It knows solution is in better coordination with
the Commonwealth, and the iid. Local Governments. And it is not a
matter, as I think Gerhar' tther it is ATSIC or the Commonwealth
Health. Department, or: .1 ueensland or it's the Local Government or the
Health Council, or the Lancu Council it is a case of everybody coming together
in the delivery of a coordinated strategy. That is what we are seeking to do
here. But we can't do it without you. None of us can do it without you. If you are not
interested in health in a primary way and when I say primary, I mean in terms
of your own personal health to the point where you are part of a strategy, just
as any community works to alleviate disease or the likelihood of certain
complaints we can perhaps help you if you help yourselves, in joining in a
strategy that actually tries to make it work. And so that health and hygiene,
and that the strategy is to if you like ease the congregational pressures on
communities by moving from towns to out-stations, or taking positions on the
periphery of Aboriginal comminutes, all these things which lower the
temperature of infection and disease and maladies are the things which are
going to make the difference. It is not going to be simply an immunisation
program. It is not simply going to be lights on the runway. It is not simply
going to be the mid-wife. It is going to be the whole combination of things.
So, I think this is a period of great opportunity for all Australians, because I
have said and I mean it that when we are as a nation together, we are
stronger. When Aboriginal Australians and non-Aboriginal Australians are
together as a nation, we are stronger. And there is no doubt that the passage
of Mabo has made the Australian community feel better about the Aboriginal
Communities futures, and better about themselves as a community for making
this opportunity and this gesture in land. We have now got to do another thing
another perhaps more complex thing. And that is, to weave into our health
strategy the life and lifestyles of Aboriginal people, and to join with the
administrators of the Commonwealth and the States in -seeing those strategies
come to pass. It is not simply a matter of money -if the Commonwealth
Government wrote a cheque tomorrow morning in the Budget, it will not solve
the problem. It may help in particular ways, but it will not solve the problem.
So I think one of the lessons I would learn from this very welcoming visit to
Hope Vale is that you understand here in Cape York the problem. You
know it is a sophisticated problem which means all of you every one of you
have to be part of the solution. That your leaders can articulate it, but you
have to be part of the solutic then have to develop those strategies
out for housing, for health p , for access and transiting, for medical
support but we have to be aware of all of the dangers and incidents of the
traffic of disease, and to do the things which are customary in developed
societies to deal with scabies with ointments. To deal with nephritis. And to
do these things which can be done, and which should be done.
So, I am delighted by the sense of community I have found here I am
heartened, buoyed by the sense of community that I found here, by the
vigour and the intelligence and the verve of your young people which I could
see today in school, by the dedication of those who teach them, and inculcate
these truths and this learning to them, who can provide this future on-going
understanding and leadership to the community. And in seeing that, knowing
that all of you want to live, and want to recapture that traditional lifestyle, that
was denied to you for such a large part of our history. I think this is now a
possibility not everybody will take it, not everybody should. But those who
do, will have the benefit of it both spiritually and environmentally, and in terms
of their health and longevity, the challenge therefore is to deal with the
communities. So, I would like to take this. opportunity of saluting what has
been done in recognition of this problem with the Cape York Health Council, of
all the Communities of the Capc' no to say that the Commonwealth
Government will be cooperating in seeking to find the right course and
strategy to get the problem solveo.
Some of them are location specific and they can be done. And you have got
to wonder why they haven't been done whether it Is the road through from
here that should have been tarred. I mean dust is a problem dust is a
problem for respiratory complaints, of which Aboriginal people have many.
Access through strips and things like that through airports these are simply
a matter of funds and the doing of it.
These things can be done but what has to be done is to put the strategy
together, and not be territorial about it. So for my part, I said in Redfem in
1992, we this community of Australia want a new relationship with the
Aboriginal Community. We understand the history, we understand the sins,
and we want to make reparations, and we want a reconciliation. Of these we
have now sought step-by-step to do. Mabo, the Land Fund, now health. And
with health will be the environmental issues housing, sewerage etc. We
should be able to do it together, but together is the only way to do it. And I
think that is the message of this visit. Thank you very much for having me,
and for the welcome.
ends.