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PRIME MINISTER
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
RECEIPT OF SUBMISSION FROM THE COUNCIL FOR ABORIGINAL
RECONCILIATION, MURAL HALL, PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
FRIDAY, 17 MARCH 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
I am very pleased to be able to receive this today. I thought it was important
when we were negotiating, and I use the word negotiating, with the Aboriginal
community over the Native Title legislation that in terms of the social justice
response to the High Court decision, that there was a process of adequate
consultation with Aboriginal communities around this country and that no one
group or one self-appointed group was sought to or seen to represent their
views or their interests and the extensive process of consultation which has
followed in the Report going forward by the Council for Aboriginal
Reconciliation I think does justice to that wish that there was to be a
widespread consultation and that this document truly represented the views
of, the representative views of, a majority of Aboriginal people. I'm sure this it
adequately does.
And it is true, as Ian Viner said in his introduction, this Report is passed on
today by Patrick Dodson to me representing the Government on the day after
this historic decision again by the High Court confirming a constitutional basis
of the Commonwealth Parliament's Native Title legislation. This is, I think, an
important milestone in the struggle for legitimate rights for Aboriginal
Australians. I think that in the time since I first spoke to the Reconciliation Council three
years ago, just after I became Prime Minister, I said that I thought we ought to
get on and get some results. And that the best way of providing or meeting
some genuine aspiration for a reconciliation was on the basis of the fairmindedness
of the Australian community, that if they see some practical
things happening, some results happening, and they think they're rational,
they will support it. I have always believed this is a most conscientious
community in a most conscientious electorate. And that you can as a
Government or as any group go to them, talk to them, appeal to them, reason
with them and they will listen to you. But they're looking for tangible results.
In that sense there is something solid about them which goes past any
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perceived notions of difficulty, whether it be in the economic or the social field
or whether it be in terms of relations with our indigenous community.
Now, as a consequence of that I made clear then at that meeting that this
would be the intention of the Government I was privileged to lead. And at the
so-called Redfern Speech in Redfern Park at the end of 1992, 1 made clear
again that the Government would be seeking to make, first of ali to
acknowledge, and I think it is very important that as Head of Government I
acknowledged in a very public way, the wrongs done during the period of
European settlement to our indigenes and said that reparations need to be
made including of course giving expression to the notion that there was title
and prior ownership of the land to that of European settlement.
Now, I believe that that Redfern Speech and the results which have flowed
from them Mabo, the Native Title legislation and now the Land Fund are
results for which I think Australians have felt good about and I think it has
reduced rancour and it has reduced racism. Because rather than it just being
a skittish debate that never seems to go anywhere, all of a sudden there are
tangible milestones where people understand that something good has been
done and something just has been done and that the community has been
able to reflect upon it and believe in it and feel good about.
So, I think by these results, we have actually reduced any propensity not to
recognise the rights of indigenous peoples and it has reduced what most of
us in this room would call racism in Australia. Now this is a good thing and it
has come as the Reconciliation Council was given a nigh on impossible task
to simply, through the fact that it was a representative body sought to by its
work and by its deeds and by its expressions, preach the gospel of
reconciliation with practical results. It was too big a task without some help
and I think the help needed to come by the Government and the Parliament
taking its responsibilities onwards to do these things.
So I think results are the key words, not pap and nonsense. And if there is
one thing about this debate that I reflect upon, it is that there is no place for
bleeding hearts in it. You know if the Aboriginal community, every time they
see somebody with a bleeding heart, they ought to say thank you but just
please move to the side. It's because of that sort of attitude that it has taken
so long to get this far and it is why now, I think, we have got to continue in the
way we are going.
Now Pat ( Dodson) talked about a policy based on rights not welfare and I
concur in that and we have got to establish what those rights are but of
course we have made some very important headway in that principal right
which, of course, is the right to land and the moral strength of the inherent
right. Whether the Native Title Act applies in only a limited way to those who can
still establish a limited connection with the land is so or otherwise, its force is
that it is an inherent right. That it has quality about it far above a statute
right. But with the Land Fund, where people have been dispossessed of the
land, the Land Fund gives them the capacity and we know in this country
essentially Australia, particularly in areas where Aboriginal people are still
living a traditional lifestyle, or are still able to live a traditional lifestyle, or live
particularly remote from the urban areas, Australia's a patchwork quilt of
pastoral leases and where it's not pastoral leases of freehold title.
The Land Fund allows the purchase of those titles and it means that with the
inherent right coming from the Native Title legislation and the right to
purchase coming under the Land Fund, the satisfaction of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people being able to get access, get themselves
access to land, becomes, I think, the significant issue of empowerment that
Pat Dodson spoke about a few moments ago. Because we understand that
there can never be justice for Aboriginal people while they live on the margins
of the cities, or they live congregated in former mission stations around the
country or areas we call Aboriginal communities. They have to, I believe,
have that access to land.
Now, I'm very pleased about the fact that we've got a lot of bipartisanship in
this from people who have always had their heart in the right place with
Aboriginal people; Ian Viner is one and I'm glad to see him in this capacity
today, and he refers to our period in public life in the past on opposite sides
of the house, and Fred Chaney who has taken a role with the Native Title
Tribunal. These are good people and they are after good things. But, we
have to be vigilant about this matter because Richard Court has made clear
yesterday that even after the knock out decision seven to nothing of the
High Court, he is going to fight the matter politically.
I was disappointed that John Howard said today the decision confirms a
significant shift of power to the Federal Government on matters previously
within the direct authority of the states This is not a States/ Commonwealth
matter. It is a matter about our indigenous community and it is very clear that
the community of Australia wanted the Federal parliament to have this
authority in indigenous affairs with the carriage of the referendum in 1967.
There is always this discussion about the rights of the States. It is because
this Government believes the States have prerogatives in land management
and have the capacity to manage land, given they have the records and the
data base and the systems that we have under the Native Title legislation
giving them the right to establish their own tribunals. They just have to be
consistent with the Native Title Act and then it is theirs. There is no dispute
about this. There is no reasonable dispute about this.
But, I will tell you this. Beware of the whispered word ' workable', because
this is now the pass word of the die-hards. Not procedural because I get
asked about Justice French saying ' look, there is this procedure and that
procedure' and, of course, the Judge sitting atop of this tribunal is able to
recommend to the Government that this procedure or that procedure be dealt
with, but procedure is one thing, ' workable' is a word that goes to the
structure of the Bill. So, when Richard Court talks about workable, he means
a change to the structure. He doesn't mean a Western Australian tribunal set
up under a Western Australian act of Parliament consistent with a
Commonwealth law, he means something else.
Now, when John Howard said today, I notice The Age said ' Howard softens
line on Mabo' by referring to he won't repeal the Act he says, but he
wants to make it ' workable'. Workable. Just like the Land Fund. He said he
would pass it but when he got to government he would amend it to make it, of
course, workable.
I just say this, that there has been great milestones made here and this has to
be a bipartisan matter between those who believe in justice for Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people, that is historic justice and future justice
historic justice and future justice and let's be clear about what we have in
front of us and the results we have and let's go on and not brook any
opposition to the structure of these historic pieces of legislation on some
prejudicial basis that black people shouldn't have title to land. That they
should have only minimum statutory rights and that the whole notion and the
continent where they were possessed of it or had associations with it, they
had the title to it before European settlement is to be put to one side and they
get just minimum rights under statute as proposed in the Western Australian
Act. Now that, we are not having a bar of and I think we have got to press on and
make sure the country understands the difference between procedural
change and procedural improvement and as I say the whispered word
' workable' because workable means burrowing in to overturn progress and to
put these things down.
Let me say something about Aboriginal health and other issues of welfare
which, amongst other things, are included in this Report. I think that as with
all intractable problems it will be dealt with by taking it piece at a time. There
is no big ticket, magical solution, we are not going to get a large Australian
consulting organisation or a major international firm and let them a contract to
repair the lifestyles and living conditions of Aboriginal people, it can't be
done. I was in Hopevale as you may know a couple of weeks ago in
Queensland, Cape York, what struck me about that was that the Cape York
Health Council came into being in recognition of the fact that there won't be
improvements in the health of Aboriginal people unless the Aboriginal people
themselves are committed to the improvements and are part of the solution.
It is another form of empowerment and I think that is right and I think we have
now got to do practical things to make that work. For instance, Aboriginal
people in these parts of the country don't have Medicare cards, completely
unsustainable. They have a right to go to a GP and be treated, but you know
in these places there are no GPs. There are partly no GPs because there
are no cards, there is no booty and there are no pharmacies so there are no
pharmaceuticals. But then we all know there is no point in pharmaceuticals
and drugs if, in fact, we have still got 15 people living in a house with a
transmission of diseases or inadequate sewerage or if there is an acute
problem that there is no air strip to land on for a doctor to give help.
So, these are things that we have got to do, but we must bring the States into
this and local government because this is a tripartite thing. The
Commonwealth whatever it wants to do doesn't build arterial roads in remote
places. It doesn't build municipal roads. And we have to work with the States
to make sure that roads go to Aboriginal communities, that we actually
encourage out stations and we find that when people move on out stations
their morale improves, their state of mind improves, their health improves
which only proves a point the more we move back, the more closer we get
to the natural order of things the better.
These are all things that I think we can do and the same with things like
sewerage, but you know this to be true, if there is a sub division on the
outskirts of Canberra the first thing that will go out there is a road and the
second thing will be the sewerage line and the water supply. This is not true
of Aboriginal people because the States have not done it and when ATSIC
has got the funding they have said it is all over to you, you got the lot and, of
course, it can't do it. So it has to be a tripartite arrangement and something
we go at and perhaps we start trying to prioritise the areas that need help
rapidly and start doing it, again, with results. So people say ' well, there is
something happening here and it is good.'
So, the land matters as we know because the titles matter and then, I think,
we move on these other problems but let's not be starry eyed or dewy eyed
about it, let's get out there and do it. That is what it means and I think that is
what this Report is about, but there is hope in this Report. There wouldn't
have been three years ago, this could not have been produced three years
ago because I don't think the back drop existed within the Australian
community. To receive such a report, it could be produced but would it have
meant anything? One wonders, but I think it means something now.
So, I am quite bullish about the prospects of us being able to deliver justice,
that we can think about social justice in response to the High Court decision
in harmony with the decisions that have been taken in respect of land and
that we can produce results that, I think, all Australians can feel proud of.
The extensive consultation has meant something, that it has come together
under the stewardship and leadership of the Council for Aboriginal
Reconciliation, that it has substance and it has meaning, I am delighted to
receive it on behalf of the Government and we now think about how we
respond to it, it won't all be done obviously quickly, it won't be done as a
package all of it but like this intractable problem of 200 years in the making
we will hop into it with substantial fervour to try to see that justice is done, as I
say future justice and not just historic justice.
Thank you very much for the Report.